To privately not have much respect for a lot of teachers

[parsnipandmushroom]

Obviously I would never communicate this to a child, but when the "teacher knows best" lines emerge on here I often think 'no, they don't.'

I've known so many teachers make numerous basic errors with resources, and give children the wrong information. This wouldn't actually bother me much but coupled with the complaints about pay, working hours and stress, I do often think 'stop whining.'

So I am not accused of being a troll - I only mean some teachers, and so I'm not accused of drip feeding information, I am a teacher.

AIBU?

I would disagree that the best teachers do the longest hours.

I don't want to be boastful and call myself the 'best', but certainly I've been successful, both in terms of career progression and in results from my students.

I don't do exceptionally long hours. Twice a week, we have a condensed day finishing at 2:30 and I have a GCSE and A level revision session on those days. So even then I finish at 'normal time.' Thursday is my detention night all middle leaders do a detention duty. I tend to stay very late (until about 6, so not "that" late) on Tuesdays sorting out marking.

When a child comes to you and says they took 5 hours to do a 2 hour exam, you think 'something's wrong' and help with their time management - you don't think they are dedicated!

Parsnip, in primary 6pm is a regular time to leave. Teaching Y6 with 90 books to mark at least 3 times a week. Putting up double mounted displays of work (6 boards in my kvass which need changing every half term) setting up lessons for the next day. I have taught my subject at secondary for a short period and I did not find the workload anything like I have at primary. Of course, it will vary between schools and how good the support from SLT is.

On the 2 days a week that I run clubs, they go on until 4.30 so marking etc doesn't start until then. In the spring term I take booster classes for sats so most of the week is a 6pm finish at school. Gosh it takes about 30-40mins just to photocopy a class set of practice papers!

This is exactly what makes me roll my eyes about many teachers cardigan.

Do you not think, teaching secondary english - including a top set year 11 class with 34 students in it I have a tiny bit of marking myself?

Wall displays - well I do sympathise hugely with the stupid pressure put on teachers to do the tasks we aren't supposed to do but legally the school don't have a leg to stand on. I sympathise with not wanting to be the one who rocks the boat, though. Photocopying - ditto (pun intended.)

If you choose to do these things (and as said above I'm sympathetic to the pressure) but if you do - crying about how hard it is (I mean generally) and the hours done and the grind of it - there are people doing far harder things then sticking papers in a machine and being paid far less for it.

I also dislike the condescending attitude many primary teachers have towards secondary; I don't see it as much in reverse. On the contrary, secondary teachers crawl all over primary, eager to tell them how hard it must be, they couldn't do it, and so on.

I'm sure there's the odd fool in secondary who thinks primary teachers play around in sandpits all day but I haven't met any!

Who would want to be a teacher today? I love my subject (politics) and I thought wouldn't it be great to teach this subject to 16-18 years olds. Then I looked into it and I thought what a load of rubbish it is to be a teacher - bureaucracy of the highest level. So I went in to the private sector and boy am I glad! As much as I'd like the holidays I couldn't put up with the rest to justify it. In a way it's a shame as I think a good teacher should be passionate about the subject they teach x

Re the holidays. Loads of teachers end up taking pupils on residential trips in the holidays. That's not a holiday. Taking 50 odd teenagers on a plane? Taking 30 odd Year 4s on an outward bound in winter? Noo thanks.

Roll your eyes all you wish. My degree subject is history so that was also a fair but of marking when I was in secondary, although we had no 6th form so no Alevels. I now that I did not need to always mark every piece of work the day it was handed in. I don't ever suggest we have it harder, I've seen both and I would not like to be teaching a core subject a secondary these days. However, your comment about displays and photocopying not being my job just shows how out of touch you are with the reality if primary teaching. If I didn't do it, who else would? Would it be the mythical support staff or perhaps the mythical reprographics department? How about the mythical band of cleaners and care taking staff who clean my class at the end of term and stack my tables and chairs? Oh wait, me again. And I'm talking about all the primary schools I have ever taught in. Some have a bit more TA support than others but not much. As for competence; well I was on the original AST scale and have been graded good and outstanding (twice) by the 3 ofsteds I've bend involved in. So I don't think I'm particularly bad at my job.

Boney I have tried it. Tried it quite a lot actually :)

Depends what the word relentless refers to. Would you care to give an example of its use, sparing?

I was referring to this post:

"I love teaching, absolutely love it and work with people who feel the same. It's a hugely rewarding job but it is exhausting and relentless."

Sorry, I was posting in a hurry on my phone (rushing off to my teaching job, natch)

And to Sparkling, even with the residentials or whatever, you've still got many weeks of holiday where you are NOT having contact with the kids. Even when you take out time in the holidays spent planning, catching up. It's still a substantial amount more than many many other jobs.

It might be stressful, and tiring, and hard. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying that it is amply compensated compared to other similar jobs.

it takes about 30-40mins just to photocopy a class set of practice papers!

Are you standing next to the photocopier for 30-40 minutes waiting for the papers to come out?

And 6pm is NOT a late finish, so I have no idea why teachers think it's evidence for "long" hours.

'SEND is woefully underfunded and mainstream teachers are woefully lacking in the necessary training required to really ensure that children with a SLD or an ASD can reach their potential.'

YES. This isn't the teacher's fault. HOWEVER, it IS their fault that they cover up their failings with the children of SEN. It IS their fault that they hoodwink parents into believing that the 1:1 is 1:1 when it is nothing of the sort, and that the 1:1 is highly trained and experienced when it is nothing of the sort, that they justify in the staffroom that the statemented provision the child is legally entitled to is unrealistic, that they feel happy to lie to the parents of said child about the provision because they know there are other children with 'less pushy parents' who are in more need of the provision but don't have it.

The consequence of this is that children with SEN are on record as having provision they do not actually have, and their attainment grades are assumed to be what they are a capable with that support that they didn't have. Therefore the expectations for the future are damaged not to mention the fact they have been unable to equally access their education for that year.

The stolen resources having been used to plug perceived gaps in the school budget for SATS, after-school facilities, or glossy school brochures to attract parents of children who fill the demographic that increases the chances of league table climbing, for a part of the school's financial return and so the LA and the Government don't actually have accurate data about the cost of running a school and the cost of true inclusion.

That starts with the classroom teacher and their defensiveness about truthful and accurate communication, preventing the parents from holding them and the school to account in SEN.

This is not all schools, but it is all the schools that I know and I know flippin loads nationally, not to mention the 8 that my children have been through, those my parents work in for consultancy, those I worked in for consultancy, those I am a Governor in and those I come across in my SEN advocacy work.

Just because 6pm isn't late when compared with other jobs, doesn't mean it is a reasonable finishing time for a job with hundreds of demands being fired at you minute by minute from the moment you arrive to the moment you leave.

Nor is it arguably a reasonable finishing time for a quiet day with a spread-sheet and tea-breaks when you need a mental break for a couple of minutes, but the fact that most in the UK works over a year more hours than anywhere in Europe and the US doesn't make it okay.

It doesn't seem to matter how balanced your response you are not allowed to say that teaching is very hard work. Sorry if you don't like to hear that but it is. I'm not saying it's a bad job, it's hugely rewarding and I love it but it IS exhausting. You need the holidays, sorry!

Wet, your experiences sound awful but, come on, a private school just does not have the challenges to cope with that a large state comp does and it is selective by it's very nature. Big shock! Children from private schools do better academically..they are also almost exclusively from well off families. I have 2 ex pupils off to Cambridge next year though! Neither of them went to private secondary schools.

None of my family went to private schools but we all have degrees (my dad was a research scientist and had a PhD) and my brothers are very successful in their chosen fields. I think it's very wrong to tar all state schools with the same brush.

Oddbod My daughter could go to school, or not, she'd still get a degree if she had no teacher at all. Probably earlier if she didn't go to school tbh.

Children learn how to learn and problem solve long before they get anywhere near school

8-6 is a fairly long day when you're on your feet for a lot if it (or your knees depending on age group) and you have more to do in the evening.

And no, I'm not stuck to the photocopier for 49mins but not can I just come back 40mins later and expect it to be fine. It jams 100times a day for a start. Also, ours neither binds not even has the capacity to sort. Therefore, I end up with a pile which has 30xpg1, followed by 30xpg2. So I then have to sit down and make up the booklets. But this is nothing. In my previous school , the photocopier couldn't even do back to back copying. We had to do one dude then insert those back into the paper drawer the other way up so it copied in the reverse. DH once came in with me at the weekend and genuinely asked what the machine was. He's a lawyer for a bank and they just naturally upgrade theirs every 2yrs; not that he has ever done his own photocopying.

Ok, I give up. We are all crap unless we work in a private school. Christ, what a depressing thread.

Seems I've wasted 20 years of my life. Those who've done well would have without any teaching and those who haven't, that's my (and my colleagues) fault.

WetAugust - one of my DC has also said he won't have kids unless he can afford private school for at least secondary.

His state comp was rated the best in the city too. It was crap, failed him massively. It wasn't really the teachers, just the lack of discipline that allowed bullies to thrive, lack of addressing this, shifting blame as they were caught out failing in protecting him a few times, lies from the head teacher down, sticking their heads in the sand hoping the problem went away, defensiveness, patronising, arrogance. The private school he went to while not perfect and with a number of teachers also a bit patronising and think they know it all has been overall fantastic - not one incident of bullying. The kids are no angels but the school seems to be able to control behaviour better. He's had a fantastic 5 years there.

There's good and bad in all professions. I think teachers need to stop mentioning how hard it is and how many hours they work etc as most people don't believe it and are also working long hours themselves without the 13 weeks holiday so don't really care.

I was surprised having gone through the school system how many few teachers or senior management were actually "good". In primary: Reception - good, Yr1 - good, Yr2 - horrible (moody, petulant, nasty at times to kids that were age 6-7), Yr3 - ok, Yr4 - frankly an utter cunt who was unpleasant to single women parents but all pally pally with the men (I think he had short man syndrome), Yr5 - ok, Yr 6 - good. Out of two heads one was not fit for the job the other merely a bit patronising, defensive and snippy.

Secondary a mix of utterly fantastic teachers that know their subject, know how to communicate it, know how to control the kids etc and others. No different to when I was a kid really. Thank god I managed to scrape the money together for private.

Starlight, there is unbelievable pressure to ensure that we are being inclusive. The truth is that whilst I would love to be, I just don't have either the expertise nor the required extra hours. One of my children has quite a few asd traits including sensory issues so I feel I probably know more than a lot if other mainstream teachers. Certainly, I know instinctively about things that nobody thought necessary to teach me before placing an autistic child in my class. Things such as the workstation that the EP set up in the class (I had been on mat leave the first half term) that was directly underneath a hideous strobe light thingy. It was the EP who suggested that the hours awarded to this child should be shared between him and the other two children who were on SA+ but had no 1 to 1 as no statement. Apparently, this was to encourage sociability. And his 'welfare assistant' wasn't to blame . This was her first TA role and she had done 2 hours of group training on ASD run by the LA.

Inclusion rarely works. In many cases it really could if there was better training and support but as things stand then the policy is a failure. I hate having a child with additional needs in my class. Not at all because I don't value that child or want to help him or her do their very best. Rather because I know that support will be inadequate and annual reviews will be, frankly, fudged crap about how that child had come on. And all the time that poor child is being failed by the system with me at the forefront of that. And frankly, nobody seems to care because such children and their parents are a small minority. It's a national disgrace. And yes, teachers on the whole are fairly complicit in it all but that's against the backdrop of performance related fear. I'm old and gobby and my experience with DS2 means I tell it like it is at review meetings. But many young teachers just defer to the EP and the LA when it comes to this stuff.

There is no all good profession I agree.

My experience so far with dd is of great teachers.

We have had issues with the ta making alot of mistakes but then I think that is a thankless and difficult job for no money.

Agree with your general drift, and excellent username, Morelikeguidelines

I work in Au, where the word guidelines means rules, in defiance of any dictionary definition.

However, OFSTED say satisfactory means..er.. not good at all.

I'll get me coat. :o

"privately"

posting on MN aint private

also- if you think you can do it better, bloody well do it!

She does do it! Why don't you RTFT?

sparing the OP has said she's a teacher, but not that she does it better, or how.

Tellingly.